


caballeros

by franzferdinand



Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Horses, M/M, cowboys by a fire what will they repress, horses????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26123377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franzferdinand/pseuds/franzferdinand
Summary: Angel Eyes rides like a soldier. Blondie does not. On the trail to a graveyard, there's time to consider things.
Relationships: Angel Eyes/"Blondie" | The Man with No Name
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	caballeros

Angel Eyes, Blondie notes, rides like a soldier. Treats his horse like a soldier’s horse, even though Blondie’s pretty sure the beast he’s riding isn’t much more than some mongrel mustang. She’s a buckskin mare, too long in the leg to be a quarter horse, a little too nervous to be really good at working cattle. Even in the few days after they’ve stolen her, Blondie can see her shine under a pair of hands that really cares for her. Angel Eyes takes off her tack as soon as they’ve made camp, sits down against a rock and props the saddle in his lap. While Blondie makes a fire, Angel Eyes is methodically wiping the dust from saddle and bridle, runs a precious gulp of water along the bit and dries it carefully. Blondie wants to ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing, cleaning something that’s going to be dirty again by the following morning, but he never does. There are some parts of a man’s ritual it doesn’t do to question, and how a man watches his horses is one of them.

Where he got it Blondie doesn’t know, but as the sun sets each night he watches Angel Eyes take out a hard brush and take the dust and the sweat off his horse. He uses his knife to pick out her feet, checks all four of her shoes with an eye that knows what it’s looking for. The third night he does this, Blondie can feel the glare of his own horse, a bay gelding that’s practically buckskin himself from dust, dig into his back. 

He watches Angel Eyes for several minutes before he asks. Lights a quirley like he’s got all the time in the world. 

“You mind if I borrow that brush?”

Angel eyes turns to him, uses the back of his hand to dust the remainder of the loose dirt off his mare’s hind. He steps closer, around the fire, and Blondie notices all of a sudden that this is among the least formal he’s ever seen the man. He’s in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs rolled up to his elbows, hat perched on a nearby rock. Angel Eyes looks downright casual. 

“You know how to use it?”

Blondie gives it a moment before he smiles, just a brief twitch of his lips. “Ain’t a gun, old man.”

Angel Eyes watches him like a hawk, surprisingly intense for a discussion about a curry comb. Blondie has to wonder what’s behind that, what else he’s being asked when Angel Eyes stares him and his horse down in turn. He doesn’t repeat the question. 

“I know my way around horses. Know how to clean ‘em.” Blondie says, taking a step forward without reaching for the comb. Angel is still glaring, those bright eyes glinting in the light of the fire. Blondie still can’t tell what he’s looking for, but evidently he finds it, because he passes the brush over. Blondie tips his hat in thanks before tossing it onto a rock and making his way over to where the bay is standing, head drooping.

“Hey there, guy,” Blondie whispers, watching the horse’s ears prick up, one eye swivel to find him. He’s still got the brush in his hand, and he places it far more gently on the ground nearby before taking in the horse in full. He’s dusty as can be expected from hard trail riding, broken only by lines of sweat along his shoulders, his barrel, tracing the muscles in his hindquarters. When Blondie’s got the saddle off him, it’s even more obvious that he’s quite a looker. Most horses out West were short, squat, strong but unrefined. They were as tired and as worn as their riders, roughened by the sun and the work. His bay is taller, thinner in the shoulder, a little shorter in the back, his legs and neck well-made. He looks more like the horses he remembered back East, horses that don’t have to chase cattle or hear constant gunfire or cross the desert on a few gulps of water. He looks almost like a Thoroughbred.

“How in the hell did I find you?” Blondie murmurs as dips to pick up the rope from where the saddle is resting, careful and deliberate. He walks up to the horse in the same way, slow and steady, as he takes off his bridle, careful to keep the reins over his neck, just in case. The rope halter he ties is almost entirely muscle memory. He chews his quirley as he goes, eyes half-closed, remembering other horses, other times. 

As he ties the end of his new lead to a stone, he thinks that his horse looks thankful to be off the bit, and gives a silent apology. 

The horse is still as he picks up the brush, only shifting his feet slightly as Blondie comes up to his side. He starts to brush him slow, pressing down in the spots where the dust and the sweat are caked thickest, brushing across the direction of the fur to dislodge any clumps. As he goes, and the dust falls off in clouds, he can feel the bay start to lean into the brush, sees him rest one hind foot in a picture of equine contentment. He’s crouched down, using the very end of the brush to clean off the bay’s legs and feet when he notices that Angel Eyes is watching him.

Blondie keeps going, keeps his breathing even as he finishes off and stands. He dusts his knees, stretches briefly, and looks back at Angel Eyes. 

“He’s got a sock on his left hind.” 

“Does he, now?” 

Blondie just smiles again and tosses him the brush. The cigarillo has burnt down to nothing, forgotten in the corner of his mouth, and he tosses that too, into the fire. The sun is well set now, the light too low to do much of anything but settle back down by the fire. Blondie grabs his saddle, props it up to lean against; it was a habit he’d picked up pushing cattle, and it stuck. Certainly beat laying with your head on the ground. Angel Eyes, of course, is not leaning on his saddle. He’s by the fire, watching it with something inscrutable about him. He’s holding his pipe in one hand, but he isn’t smoking it. He’s playing with the hard bristles of the brush with his other. 

“You got a name for that horse of yours?” Blondie asks, and he isn’t sure why. They’d found these horses tied at the edge of the last town they came near, practically dripping from the heat and the weight of their saddles. The pair of them had been on foot for almost two days, after their last pair of mounts had up and spooked at a stray gunshot. They’d still been tacked, damn them, even as they’d galloped away. No use chasing after them, not when the sun was beating and they both still had their water on them. It had been better to trudge on. The buckskin and the bay had been the perfect opportunity, tied careless by one rein to the remains of a tree stump. Horse thieving isn’t the most honorable of occupations, but when your mind’s on a figure like two hundred thousand dollars, everything else just seems to fall by the wayside. 

“There’s a name tacked onto the saddle,” Is Angel Eyes’ reply. His expression hasn’t changed save for a glint in his eye, the slightest tilt of his head as he regards where Blondie is laying against his saddle. Blondie can see where the sweat is gathered in the hollow at the base of his throat. “Daisy.” 

“Daisy.” 

“Hey, I didn’t pick it. I’ll sure as hell use it, though, if it keeps her from runnin’ off like the last pair did.” 

Blondie lets out a little huff of amusement and settles down lower. He feels exposed, coat and hat off, legs stretched out in front of him. His spurs are glinting in the firelight. By now it’s truly dark. 

He hears Angel Eyes sigh, hears the rustle of clothing and assumes he’s stretching out too. Riding hard like this has taken its toll on the both of them, and Blondie wonders if Angel Eyes’ legs are burning like his are. 

“Where’d you learn to ride, anyway?” Angel Eyes asks. 

“On a horse.”

Angel Eyes snorts. He seems to come out of his reverie, sits up slightly to put down the brush and light his pipe. The fire crackles. Somewhere, a bird cries. Blondie feels his inner thigh start to cramp and takes the moment to fish out the flask of whisky that had been in his bay’s saddlebag, takes a swig. 

“Farm,” he says. “Just checkin’ fences, mostly,”

If Angel Eyes has a judgement for him, he doesn’t show it. “You’ve worked on a drive, haven’t you?”

Blondie lights a cigarillo mostly out of habit. The match looks at home among the burning embers. “What makes you say that?” 

“It’s in the way you ride, boy. Defensive. When you get in the saddle, you’re ready to stay there a good long while.”

“I’d say that was everyone out here, wouldn’t you?” He looks over at Angel Eyes, and sees the man’s eyes wrinkled in something like a smile. The sweat on his neck is drying in the cool night. “You’ve been a soldier, haven’t you? A real one?”

Angel closes those famous eyes and lets his head fall back. Blondie looks at the fire. “Not much point in hiding it. Had a mare that would run you a hundred miles, run you till she dropped dead. Nicest damned horse I ever met. Suppose it turned me soft on them. I figure these beasts are ill-used enough without me making it even worse.” 

Blondie just nods, even though Angel Eyes isn’t looking. Takes an absentminded drag of the quirley that’s been burning at the corner of his mouth. The bay is standing quietly, ears flicking at the flies. He turns his eyes to Daisy, and she’s looking at him. “She remind you of your old mare?”

Angel Eyes doesn’t move. “That mare was quarter horse through and through. Red chestnut.”

Blondie, in his turn, doesn’t reply. 

“She does.” 

There is a silence, then, filled with memories and the quiet sounds of horses breathing and tails swishing.

Angel Eyes sits up, looks at Blondie with intent, but with a new softness too. His face isn’t open, far from it, but it’s as unguarded as Blondie’s ever seen it. He picks up Daisy’s bridle from where it lays, and starts to undo the leather straps that hold the bit in place. When he's finished, he tosses the piece of metal outside the ring of firelight, and Blondie hears it clatter against the rocks.

“You have a name for the bay?”

Blondie blows a smoke ring. He’d almost forgotten how. “Can’t say I do.” 

“You ought to think of one. Maybe you could tack it onto the saddle. _Littera scripta manet_.”

Behind them both, the bay gives a quiet snort. 

“I might just do that.”


End file.
